1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an apparatus for single file transporting of bottles and molded articles, arranged in horizontal and standing positions, from a mass of such bottles and articles by means of a receiving container made of dimensionally stable material. The interior space of this container is open at the top and receives a molded article in a horizontal position.
2. The Prior Art
A device for straightening and lining up oblong bottles, cans, molded articles or the like of all kinds of shapes and sizes in standing positions, having filling opening disposed at the top, and with the subsequently transfer to a conveyor device, is known from U.S. Pat. No. 5,415,322. In this known device, which has a limiting housing with a raised edge and a slanted disk, a rotating disk is present within this housing. This revolving disk is slanted correspondingly and has a catch or driver means within its marginal zone, permitting the passage of the molded articles into drop chutes. The catch or driver means substantially consists of passage openings extending tangentially relative to the edge and having a length approximately corresponding with the length of the molded articles. The molded articles are supported by a stationary bottom arranged below the passage openings. When the disk is revolving, the molded articles come to lie in the passage openings and are transported to an upper curve point, where they are received in drop chutes. Exchangeable molded elements can be inserted into the passage openings, whereby the molded elements are bottomless and develop a function only in association with the drop chute, which is disposed underneath and runs along. The molded elements do not represent any independent transporting means. They have built-in baffles for mechanically detecting the position of the bottle, so that the bottle opening is pointing up when the bottle drops. This principle only works with dimensionally stable bottles and if the bottle neck offers adequate length for support.
Furthermore, such molded elements are always designed for only one bottle size. Also, the workability of this device requires that the catch or driver means and the molded elements are quite accurately adapted to the shape and size of the molded articles. In other words, changes have to be made on the machine for processing different types of molded articles. Consequently, the molded elements and, if need be, also the catch or driver means have to be exchanged. This requires a very high investment in a multitude of inventory of differently sized parts which is very costly. Moreover, the process efficiency is reduced because the occupancy of the recesses is made more difficult on account of the adapted form or shape and results in an efficiency of only about 70% to 80%.
Another significant drawback of the prior art is that the molded articles are subjected to mechanical stress, which can very easily lead to deformation of the molded articles. This is the case especially when handling environmentally friendly thin-walled bottles. Furthermore, another drawback is that if a bottle is damaged or deformed, it is difficult to sort or cannot be sorted at all because this molded article gets jammed into the opening. The catch or driver means basically pushes the bottles across bottom or floor elements so that sensitive surfaces of the bottles or molded articles can easily become scratched. This is particularly important in connection with environmentally friendly lightweight bottles which are already labeled. The label must not show any scratch traces, which lead to malfunction or breakdown of the machine. Moreover, the material expenditure is significantly high on account of the fact that sized parts have to be kept available in storage for changes when molded articles of different dimensions have to be processed.